Virtual headhunting big data firm secures 525k venture capital

A new type of recruitment business which has revolutionised the way employers source fresh talent has received a &pound525,000 investment from The North West Fund for Venture Capital, managed by Enterprise Ventures.

JobsTheWord, which is based at Daresbury Science Park in Cheshire, searches and analyses data from social media and other sites to help companies identify candidates. It claims to significantly reduce the time and cost of sourcing new employees and also allow businesses to reach out to high-quality candidates who might not be actively searching for a job.

The funding, which is provided jointly by the European Regional Development Fund and the European Investment Bank, will allow the business toscale up its research and development, create new value added features and develop products for sectors other than recruitment.

JobsTheWord was founded in 2011 by IT specialists Will Crandle and Lee Harding and Keith Jones, an experienced entrepreneur and angel investor. It has attracted clients including World Pay, Blackberry, Samsung, Hewlett Packard and Experian and already has millions of registered users.

It is one of a new wave of companies developing applications for & lsquo;big data’ – the ability to process and make sense of the huge amount of information, which is now available to us on the internet. JobsTheWord has developed its own platform, which uses complex algorithms to extract intelligence from online profiles, blogs and websites, to inform potential candidates from all backgrounds of opportunities they may never have otherwise known about.

Keith Jones said: “The web is a treasure chest of information providing insights into all aspects of our working lives. Our system transforms it into a database packed full of talent, which not only helps employers save time and money, but also to reach out to those who are not actively searching for jobs and often the best candidates.

Will Clark, Investment Director with Enterprise Ventures, which manages the North West Fund for Venture Capital, said: “JobsTheWord is the first company in the UK to use big data in the recruitment sector, which could revolutionise the way employers search for staff. However recruitment is just one application for the technology. This investment will help the business to expand the current activities and develop big data products for other sectors too.”